Passengers permitted off cruise ship in Santa Barbara Harbor

April 9, 2014

More than 50 Crown Princess cruise ship passengers who appear to be sick with the Norovirus will be required to remain on board while non-ill passengers will be permitted to leave the ship currently docked in the Santa Barbara Harbor.

Officials with the Santa Barbara County Health Department inspected the ship around 8 a.m. on Wednesday and deemed it save for healthy passengers to leave.

On Monday, about 37 passengers on the Crown Princess reported being sick while the ship was in San Francisco. Medical staff believe the cause of the illness is the Norovirus, which has flu-like symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramping.

The ship is on a seven-day cruise that began in Los Angeles on Saturday and ends in Santa Barbara. Ship staff is working to disinfect surfaces and ill passengers are being encouraged to stay in their rooms.

11 Comments

I took a cruise out of San Francisco. When we checked on the ship we noticed workers everywhere wiping door handles, hand rails. Workers offering hand sanitizer, the buffet lounge had all the servers closed and area’s covered with plastic. Next day when we met other guests at breakfast they told us that there was a virus on board had been present since Europe (it was a world cruise) and thought they were going to be quarantined in Southhampton. By the time we reached Hawaii I was so sick spent time in the Medical bay, so there must be quite an incubation period I suffered for about 3 to 5 days, When we boarded no one mentioned sickness.
The crew were always caring, pleasant, and helpful. A ship is a floating hotel and if you get sick in a hotel a worker (housekeeping) comes in and cleans up after you. Indigo 1955 makes it sound like the cruise workers are treated like slaves. A lot of these workers are from poverty stricken countries (India) and are thankful to work on these ships and be able to provide well for their families. They are paid a decent wage, and receive a nice tip at the end of the voyage.
I got sick and I recovered could have happened on a land vacation.
I cruise all the time, and like the smaller cruise lines.

I have enjoyed many Princess cruises over the years. The ships have always been clean, serviceable and well managed. Not so with Grand Princess.

In this case, I suspect the Grand Princess Ship is at fault. Last year I took a cruise on the Grand Princess. The ports of call were fine; yet was It was the worst cruise I have been on. Water dripped from the roof into the hallway outside our room. The carpet on most of the ship was soggy and a trip hazard due to ripples caused by the sogginess. The toilet didn’t flush properly in my cabin and the cabin next door flooded due to a toilet over flow. There’s more, but you get the idea. I wrote Princess headquarters and made a detailed critic of the ship’s condition. Looks like it was ignored. Not a good recommendation for Princess lines.

Hummm…….Sounds to me like this virus is highly contagious. Don’t know what the incubation period is or when someone becomes contagious but if you’ve been exposed then there is a strong possibility that you’re carrying the virus prior to manifesting the symptoms ??

Just saying that maybe these exposed passengers shouldn’t be walking around the public and visiting the shops in SB? But then, money talks.

And people just keep on booking cruises. Unable to use logical thinking and figure out there is a pattern of Norovirus on these ships, they just continue pumping money into these companies that reap high profits. If they stop, however, the ships will feel the pain. They then WILL do something about the matter. People just cannot seem to get on board for anything other than immediate gratification these days. The staff on these ships work very hard-they are the ones that clean up after these huge sicknesses-and no one considers that they were just hired to cook or do massage-and should have been able to get off work and go home to their families. Boycott these ships-and do everyone a favor.

Just a minute, Indigo. Are you describing the cruise industry or the McDonald’s Los Osos? “Diseased facilities, improper food storage, frequent illness and poorly treated staff= BOYCOTT.” Because I think I heard the same hysteria against the McDonald’s this week!

The workers should be able to get off the ship and go home? You obviously don’t understand how cruise ship staffing works. If you go out for a week cruise, so does the staff. Do you think they fly them home each day?